Playing Your Cards Right

Drinking games, particularly during the process of pre-gaming, play an essential role in the life of a debauched young American. You may not realize it, but they’ve been plugging holes that otherwise would’ve been filled with incredibly awkward and sober conversation since you started boozing in high school.

Think about it. Your parents went out of town, so you got a gas station hobo to buy you a couple cases of beer. Then you invited five friends and six sluts over, and did what? You played drinking games. Your pubescent self couldn’t soberly handle the attention of six budding young females (before the Keystone Light had time to seep into your bloodstream) without some help.

This doesn’t really change in college. You get so used to talking to girls in a full blown party scenario that carrying a conversation during a calm pregame somehow becomes even weirder than it was in high school. At some point during my junior year, I remember sitting in economics class, bored out of my mind, when the smokeshow next to me asked to borrow a pen. I thought to myself, Holy shit, I don’t have a pen and I haven’t hit on a girl sober in three years. It probably should’ve served as a wakeup call, but it didn’t. I told her to come to the house that night, dominated with her as my beer pong partner, and ended up “hanging out” until about 4:00am. She never sat next to me in class again.

That’s the thing, though. Beer pong gets the respect it deserves, but what about playing cards? They’re like the offensive line of a football team: essential to success, but unappreciated.

If it wasn’t for “circle of death,” otherwise known as “king’s cup” or “ring of fire,” I’d have seen roughly 28% less female skin in my young life. Almost all of the rules we set in that game involved flashing, girl-on-girl makeouts, or lap dances. If you straight up tell two girls to make out, your odds of success are pretty low, depending on the set of females. However, when an inanimate third party, such as a deck of cards, tells two girls to make out…BOOM. It’s getting erotic. Rules are rules.

I’m not saying you should set up a shrine to playing cards and worship it on a nightly basis. I’m simply saying that respect should be given when it’s due, and the American playing card has been overlooked for far too long. So get out there, grab a deck of cards, and keep that cell phone camera ready.

Bet Your Liver: Pour whatever amount of alcohol you’d like into a pitcher as your bet, then guess red or black (ind.ian or n199er if that’s what you prefer).
Guess right, pass the pitcher to the next person
Guess wrong, chug whatever is in the pitcher